Reynolds, After Protests, Cancels Cigarette Aimed at Black Smokers

By ANTHONY RAMIREZ

Published: January 20, 1990

Under fire for developing a cigarette aimed primarily at blacks, the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company abruptly decided late yesterday to cancel the cigarette.

The company said a market test that was to begin in three weeks would no longer be reliable because of what it called ''the unfair and biased attention the brand had received.''

''There's a feeling here that we were cheated on this one,'' David B. Fishel, Reynolds's senior vice president-public relations, said in a telephone interview from the company's headquarters in Winston-Salem, N.C. ''Maybe, in retrospect, we would have been better off not saying we were marketing to blacks. But those were the smokers we were going after, so why shouldn't we be honest about it?''

The cancellation follows a speech on Thursday in Philadelphia by Dr. Louis W. Sullivan, the nation's top health official, denouncing Reynolds for ''slick and sinister advertising'' and for ''promoting a culture of cancer.'' Dr. Sullivan, who is black and has made the health of minorities a priority in his role as Secretary of Health and Human Services, called on the company to cancel the cigarette, called Uptown.

In Washington, Dr. Sullivan issued a statement last night on the Uptown cancellation. ''I am elated by the news that R. J. Reynolds has decided not to test-market its new tobacco product in Philadelphia.'' he said.

Uptown's market test was to begin Feb. 5 in Philadelphia, which has a large black population. Black groups organized there last week to protest the cigarette's sale.

Reynolds said that because of the heated emotions, it would be ''unable to receive an accurate test-market reading on Uptown.'' An estimated cost for canceling the campaign was not immediately available, but Mr. Fishel said it would not be a ''relatively large number'' since the test was in just one city. Reynolds officials have previously said that test markets typically cost at least $2 million.

In a statement, Peter Hoult, Reynolds's executive vice president for marketing, said: ''Our intentions in test-marketing Uptown in Philadelphia have been misconstrued and misrepresented by the anti-smoking lobby. Our sole purpose, plainly and simply, was to test-market a cigarette among smokers who currently buy competitive products.''

Company's Regrets

''We regret,'' he added, ''that a small coalition of anti-smoking zealots apparently believe that black smokers are somehow different from others who choose to smoke and must not be allowed to exercise the same freedom of choice available to all other smokers. This represents a loss of choice for black smokers and a further erosion of the free enterprise system.''

Marketing cigarettes to minorities is not new. Billboards and newspaper advertisements have feaured black models for years. But what provoked critics, including the American Cancer Society, was Reynolds's marketing campaign aimed explicitly at blacks. The packaging, the product name and its menthol flavoring had been consumer-tested for appeal to black smokers.

Dr. Sullivan was especially critical. ''At a time when our people desperately need the message of health promotion,'' he said in remarks at the University of Pennsylvania on Thursday, ''Uptown's message is more disease, more suffering, and more death for a group already bearing more than its share of smoking-related illness and mortality.''

Cancellation Urged

In a letter sent Wednesday to Reynolds's president, James W. Johnston, Dr. Sullivan urged the cancellation of Uptown.

Reynolds, a unit of RJR Nabisco Inc. and the second-largest tobacco company, after the Philip Morris Companies, has said it simply responded to the dictates of the cigarette marketplace. Last year, the industry shrank 6 percent, and tobacco marketing has long been a struggle that focused on taking customers away from rival tobacco companies, rather than wooing new smokers. Industry sales totaled $35.8 billion last year.

In a business where companies pinpoint market segments, like affluent women or blue-collar males, Reynolds said the only thing unusual about marketing to blacks was saying so. The company argued that blacks also showed a greater preference for one cigarette characteristic, menthol, than other smokers.

Preference of Blacks

According to Reynolds, 69 percent of black smokers prefer menthol, compared with 27 percent of smokers over all. The preference of black smokers for menthol has never been explained.

Reynolds has the best-selling menthol brand, Salem, but it is losing substantial market share. B.A.T.'s Brown & Williamson has the No. 2 menthol brand, Kool, and the Loews Corporation's Lorillard has the No. 3 brand, Newport, which is gaining market share. It is also the best seller among blacks, with a lighter menthol recipe than Salem. Uptown was to have a lighter menthol concentration.

In the narrowest bit of marketing to blacks, Uptown cigarettes were to be packed with filters facing down, the reverse of the usual arrangement. Market research indicated that many blacks open packs from the bottom, possibly to avoid crushing the filters. Kohlberg, Kravis, Robertsd (rjr nabisco)